Macmillan US closes self-publishing platform Pronoun

Macmillan Publishers in the US is closing its self-publishing platform, Pronoun, bought in May of last year.

Macmillan Publishers in the US is closing its self-publishing platform, Pronoun, bought in May of last year.

The closure was announced on its website. The publisher said that although it was "proud of the product we built" and "grateful for the community of authors that made it grow" it was winding up its operations for unspecified reasons.

"Unfortunately, Pronoun’s story ends here," it said in a statement. "While many challenges in indie publishing remain unsolved, Macmillan is unable to continue Pronoun’s operation in its current form. Every option was considered before making the very difficult decision to end the business."

Authors will no longer be able to create a new account or publish a new book, and, as of 15th January, Pronoun's distribution will cease too.

For the next two months, Macmillan will be concentrating on helping author to transition their books to other services.

The platform, originally founded as Vook in 2009 and relaunched in 2015 under a new name, provided digital book publishing tools to authors for free and distributed the e-books to retailers, including Amazon, Apple and Google Play, without taking a commission.